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In his sixth and final lecture, Edward Said considers how far an intellectual should participate in the public sphere. He examines the dilemma of loyalty to a cause, the nature of belief, and the problems faced by those who publicly recant. The hardest aspect of being an intellectual, he says, is to represent what you profess through your work and interventions, without turning into an institution or acting at the behest of a system or method.

In his fifth lecture, Edward Said considers the basic question for the intellectual: how does one speak the truth? Is there some universal and rational set of principles that can govern how one speaks and writes? He examines the difficulties and sometimes loneliness of questioning authority, and argues that intellectuals should present a more principled stand in speaking the truth to power.

In his fourth lecture, Edward Said examines the possibility of amateur intellectuals and their influence on society. He explores the notion of the ‘non-academic intellectual’ and considers some of the current pressures on intellectuals to be marketable and uncontroversial as well as in areas of specialisation, political correctness and authority.

In his third lecture, Edward Said looks at intellectuals both as expatriates and as people on the margins of their own society. He examines how exile inspires their thinking and considers representations of the intellectual as the permanent exile.

In his second lecture, Edward Said explores the role of intellectuals from different cultures and backgrounds, and the choices that face them when deciding to side with the powerful or with the underdog. He examines that problems of loyalty and nationalism for intellectuals, and argues that their role is primarily to question.

In his first of six Reith Lectures, Edward Said examines how intellectuals have been defined by academics, sociologists and writers throughout history. He explores what their role should be in the modern world and looks at what the public and private versions of an intellectual are.

James Bridle, blogger, publisher, and media thinker delivers a moving talk on the intersection of ruination, the ever-repeating process by which cultures and knowledge are destroyed, and the web design.